Dueling Deck Techs: Clues

Dueling Deck Techs: Clues

Welcome to another Dueling Deck Tech!

Magic has had 30 years to not only come up with a whole host of different and interesting themes to build a deck around but also develop them into something you can play with in all five colors. The problem is that too many five-color decks make them all feel less special. In this series, I want to break apart the five-color decks.

I'll discuss the theme, what value each color adds to it, the core colors of the theme, and then suggest a pair of commanders which each use at least one of the core colors but bring other spices to the table.

Core colors, for the record, will be determined by total number of decks in a given color with that theme under EDHrec. There will be some consideration given to the mono-color, two-color, and three-color categories.

This entry? Clues.

Why Play Clues?

Card draw rules, next question.

Okay, for real. Clues are a unique bit of Magic history, being one of the first major noncreature tokens to see widespread use. They were so early on that the designers tied the creation of Clues to a keyword, investigate. This was incredibly flavorful but also restrictive and occasionally presents cohesion issues when compared to other noncreature tokens like Food or Treasure. 

The first and most obvious benefit is the ability to crack Clues for card draw, but that's just the top layer. Clues are artifacts, which have a lot of fun synergies to hook into as needed without making a pure artifact deck. 

Core Colors of Clues?

Blue is the first and away the clearest "Clue" color, being the primary color for card draw. It has two of the things Clues need most: artifact synergies and ways to turn Clues into a win condition. Blue can animate the Clues, turning them into game-winning threats out of potentially nowhere.

This is one of those themes that actually started out pretty handily in three colors and has persisted pretty uniformly. Between the two other colors, I believe green is the closest to blue in terms of Clue production. It has several solid ways to not just repeatedly make Clues but turn them into alternative resources.

The third and final color to talk about in this section is white. It has a lot of low-to-the-ground sources of investigation, encouraging lower mana creatures or attacking with much of the card directions. White also has some amount of artifact synergy, though not as much as blue.

This is notably the first theme in the series that is solidly in three colors. Murders at Karlov Manor gave us a Clue commander in the form of Morska, Undersea Sleuth

Gold Options

1. Disorder in the Court
2. Officious Interrogation
3. Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy
4. Wavesifter

White

1. Search the Premises
2. Merchant of Truth
3. Angelic Sleuth
4. Armed with Proof

Blue

1. Ethereal Investigator
2. Erdwal Illuminator
3. Five Hundred Year Diary
4. Piper Wright, Publick Reporter

Green

1. Fae Offering
2. Innocuous Researcher
3. Sharp-Eyed Rookie
4. Briarbridge Patrol

What Does Each Color Offer?

For once, we only have two colors in the mix. Black and red, and black is definitely the one with more investigation to its name. For its part, black has a fair bit of Clue-making ability, some artifact and token interaction of note, and the occasional Clue synergy that makes one take notice.

Then there's red. Red has three entire cards which specifically calls out Clues or investigate, all of them essentially limited-only players. We're... we're not going to run Torch the Witness

I will give a special shout-out here to colorless options for Clue decks, which either synergize directly with Clues or hook into their nature as artifacts or tokens:

So with that noted, we have choices. With green and blue being the top two, I want to separate them for our deck choices.

Azorius and Jund: Ezrim, Agency Chief

Dimir and Naya: Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Gruul and Esper: Jaheira, Friend of the Forest

Selesnya and Grixis: Cadira, Caller of the Small

Izzet and Abzan: Glacian, Powerstone Engineer

Golgari and Jeskai: Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer

...that's a lot of partner pairs. Clues are really compelling, flavor-wise, and their weird artifact-ness lets them do fun things! A major boon would definitely be the friends forever grouping, who even allow for several four-color combinations. 

Ultimately, I wanted to pick two decks whose commanders directly called out Clues in some way. I also wanted blue without green or white, as I felt it could run out enough Clue support on its own. After narrowing down the options, I ultimately decided on...

Overview of Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Our deck is running about 25 creatures to ensure we have plenty to die and provide investigation triggers, so that feels fairly well-covered. All those Clues lying around can be converted into damage one way or another...

There's also the pure artifact nature at work, which can be used to power out some interesting spells and big effects. Anything with affinity for artifacts or which counts the number of artifacts we have lying around is worth taking a look at. 

Our commander surveils, which not only helps us find our reanimate spells but also helps get more creatures into the graveyard without the whole messy process of drawing, casting, and getting them to die.

Over the course of the game, our Clues will serve several purposes, from turning them into additional sources of mana, to sneaky ways of getting in damage. We can even cash in a bunch of Clues for a mass reanimate...

This is a pretty straightforward control deck, with the ways it wants to brick up in the early game and try to bleed out the opponents or crash in with a Rise and Shine

Time Sieve

Alright, what's the next deck?

Overview of Elmar & Sophina

Elmar, Ulvenwald Informant

Our creatures run small, ensuring we can hopefully curve out and run in with one or both of our commanders. The optimal sequence of our commanders would be some ramp on turn 1 or 2, turn 3 Sophina, followed by Turn 4 Elmar, a second spell, and then swing. That's at least three Clues, but it should be a lot more. Even if we don't get that plan online, we have other ways to investigate.

Green and white are doing the heavy lifting on Clues and investigating. While red doesn't particularly care about Clues, it loves artifacts. We have a bevy of ways for red to use those artifacts, like the aforementioned Reckless Fireweaver

Our commanders' triggers are incredibly useful, and one is an attack trigger. We have a way to double triggers or generally synergize by virtue of having quite a few other creatures with attack triggers. We're not going all in on attack triggers here, so the ones we include will be ones that already work with our gameplan.

Finally, we want additional ways to take advantage of all the Clues lying around. We may very well have games where we curve out and empty our hand, then use the Clues to refill it, but we want options. Thanks to them being artifacts and tokens, we have a couple of hooks to seize for some powerhouse cards.

From there, fill it out with a few aggressive options and some ways to protect your board (hello, Stalwart Pathlighter

Conclusion

With that, we have two very different versions of the Clue deck. Both want to make alternate use of Clues while occasionally cracking them for cards, but how they use them trends differently. Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Elmar, Ulvenwald Informant

Hope you have fun telling your opponents to get a Clue!